


Can't Define What I'm After

by astrangetypeofchemistry



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alya tries to knock sense into Adrien and fails, And all that jazz, F/M, Mari calls Adrien a brat, Mlsecretsanta2k16, and doesn't stick with it, and years later sends him an email to try and reconcile, because character growth, but Adrien decides to live up to that reputation, hawmoth is deafeated, like a LONG time ago, people make mistakes and stupid decisions that they can't stick by because they change with time, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9031136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangetypeofchemistry/pseuds/astrangetypeofchemistry
Summary: I should've stayed, let the masks dissolve, clumsy hands meet, and hearts fall.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot tell you how many times I have tried and failed to format this on ao3. 
> 
> I'll tell you.
> 
> Too many times.

_Dear Adrien,_

_It’s been years since I last saw you. Specifically the day that you and I, Chat Noir and Ladybug, defeated Hawkmoth._

_I know Chat Noir chased Ladybug for years. I know you were in love with the part of me that treated you like a real person, the part of me that didn’t stutter and trip and blush and flail. I’m sorry that Marinette never could see Adrien as just another person._

_But your love wasn’t unrequited. I was a 15 year old girl who wanted things in life and would go through any means to get to them. The only difference between myself and Chloe was subtlety, and the fact that she chose to be malicious to teach her goal._

_But somewhere underneath that exterior of a clumsy growing adolescent, I was also a girl confused by my own emotions. I loved Adrien Agreste, the boy who sat in front of me in class. I fell in love with gentle fingers brushing against mine, green eyes so intense they could burn the world, a laugh so loud and relieved and free._

_And maybe those feelings blinded me, but underneath them, there was so much more. There was a love for hands clasped onto my shoulders, trying to inspire me, giving me words of encouragement that would lead me to change my life forever._

_I know. I messed up that day. I know I did. But you have to understand. It didn’t matter if it was Adrien Agreste under the black mask. It didn’t. I already loved Chat Noir._

_I think back so much, my heart aches and my hands tremble, and I remember a teasing voice calling after me, always one step behind, ready to catch me lest I fall. And I realize every day that I loved the arm that wrapped around my waist, the tail that always seemed to be curled towards me._

_I wish I could go back to that day. To fix where everything splintered. I’m typing this as tears roll down my cheek, trying to convince myself that this time, I’ll send it. I’ve been deciding what to write for so long. Nothing ever sounded right._

_Ladybug regrets pushing Chat Noir away. She should’ve stayed, let the masks dissolve, clumsy hands meet, and hearts fall. But she was afraid. Afraid that handing her identity to Chat Noir was as good as giving him her heart. And who knows what he’d do with that? Isn’t that so stupid? She always held his heart in her fragile palms, and yet didn’t want to reciprocate the gesture. How stupid._

_But it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s too late. You’ll always live on in my heart, and I hope I’ll always live on in yours._

_I hope wherever you are, whoever you’re with, whatever you’re doing, you still get same rush of freedom that flying across the rooftops did. I wouldn’t want any less for you._

_I just. Don’t want you to doubt that I ever loved you. You were one of the most important people in my life, and I would’ve done anything for you. You were always worth the effort._

_Please don’t ever forget me,_

_Marinette_

* * *

 

“She really did care about you, you know,“ Alya says, and Adrien feels his smile stretch across his face, tainted and forced, a little too wide.

Some part of him doesn’t want to believe it, will never want to believe it. It’s this aching part of him that isn’t worthy of love, isn’t worthy of stammering and bright pink blushes and flailing arms. Because who is he to be cared for, worried for?

But a quiet "I know” slips him anyway, meant to appease Alya and do nothing else, and some part of her must know, for her stare turns hard as she continues to glare at him.

“I mean it!” She snaps the words at him, but Adrien isn’t listening. He can only think of a laugh teasingly thrown back at him, terms of endearment delivered mockingly as humor spills from his lips.

And he repeats “I know,” and he knows she doesn’t believe him, and she knows he knows, but they’re sitting here at an impasse. Because Nino and Alya might’ve kept quiet contact with one another, but Marinette and Adrien were never close enough for that.

 _But Ladybug and Chat Noir were closer than that_ , a quiet voice whispers in his head, and as he stares head on at Alya, refusing to back down from this challenge she’s proposing, he’s remembering jokes and smiles and touches and this big feeling of contentment he’d never felt before.

The day Ladybug and Chat Noir had parted, masks had come off. A deep feeling of loneliness and resentment had buried itself in Chat’s chest, strengthened by Ladybug’s– Marinette’s– furrowing eyebrows and silent shock, the belief that Adrien and Chat Noir can’t have been the same.

And just when he’d thought it couldn’t grow, it had. With Marinette’s muted gasp, the mutter of “falling for the same person twice over” had reached his ears and lodged in his heart, a deep feeling of hatred had grown, words had been spit out with a harsh ferocity.

“What would’ve happened?” Chat Noir’s fury was found in Adrien Agreste. Chat Noir was trembling with anger inside of Adrien Agreste’s polite and reserved demeanor. “If Adrien and Chat hadn’t been the same?”

And the way she’d flinched, winced, jumped back as if the thought had never occurred to her; the revelation, that he hadn’t been worth a solution, hadn’t been worth the effort it took to stay up all night, agonizing, had registered with terrifying clarity, reminding him that no one would be going out of their way, making special time with him in mind. Why should he have expected the same from the girl who was always too busy running around, either for her duty as class rep or as the superheroine of Paris?

And it had been a cowardly thing, to flee when Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s words hadn’t articulated well, her sentences blending into a mess the way he was accustomed to.

But now, he realizes that this is even more cowardly. There are words of regret printed on his phone, blame for something that isn’t entirely her fault, written by the same woman he had claimed to love so many years ago, and he chooses to do nothing.

Because, deep under his anger at this thing between them, the unknown possibilities that having loved Ladybug entailed once Ladybug became Marinette, there had been hatred for himself.

Chat Noir had run around, letting everyone know that no matter who was under Ladybug’s mask, he would love them, while Adrien Agreste sat staring at Ladybug through his many monitors, pining and pining, deluding himself into thinking he was special and different than all the other people who claimed the same.

But he never had. Adrien Agreste, Chat Noir, despite all the similarities between Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Ladybug, had never connected the dots, never quite loved the girl under the mask the way he’d loudly proclaimed he did.

And Ladybug, who’d kissed her partner and never said a word, loved her partner and never said a word, loved her classmate and never said a word, had managed to love all of him through and through. Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste could never be associated on the same level, and yet, somehow, Ladybug had managed to. She’d given them both parts of her heart fully, not realizing that she’d accomplished what her partner couldn’t, loving the superhero and the civilian.

And so, five years later, Adrien Agreste sits across from Alya Cesaire, stuck in a staring contest that never would’ve happened back in Dupont.

There’s surprise on her face, that the same blonde who had always conceded refused to budge on this, probably one of the most important decisions of his life.

"You’re going to regret not reaching out, you know.” Her voice is matter-of-fact, all-knowing, but Adrien knows, just from looking at her, that she has no clue of how big this thing, this silence between Adrien and Marinette really is. She doesn’t know about Ladybug, doesn’t know about her expression as she snapped at Chat Noir that he was just being bratty, living up to his status in society. There is no indication that she knows about the horror on her old idol’s face as the one person she had truly trusted zipped away, a boiling pit of hurt and miscommunication left stewing between them.

And maybe he lets that carry him away, lets that give him this sense of superiority that is ill-placed, but he smiles at Alya, bitter and condescending, as he chooses to fall back on his favorite tactic of promising without promising.

“You’re not just stopping yourself from moving on. You’re stopping her, too.” Indignant, angry, disappointed. Alya’s voice is annoyed, pissed off, ready to tear into him. But Adrien only salutes, turning away with a smile that is too much like Chat Noir’s.

“If fate makes us cross paths, then so be it.”

He’s being unfair. He knows. But he’s unwilling to see Marinette, unwilling to admit that there’s some part of him that isn’t handling this well, hasn’t been handling it in a healthy way for years. He’s done his best to push it away, swallow it down, try to forget, and to go back to Marinette, hands clasped eagerly, is like admitting that he has failed in these last few years.

And months later, when fate does make their paths cross, when Marinette Dupain-Cheng bumps into him, babbling apologies as she tries to account for anything that might’ve have fallen, the person standing in front of him is different from the person who sent him an email not so long ago, and the person who had read that email is different than who he is now, so he only finds himself saying “Nice of you to drop in,” her answering smile blazing brighter than the sun.

He swears that the teary blue eyes that rest on his are a sight he will treasure for as long as he lives.

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the mlsecretsanta on Tumblr, and [darkheartlink](darkheartlink.tumblr.com) was unfortunate to have me be in charge of their gift. Find me on tumblr as well [here](https://queerinette.tumblr.com/).


End file.
